Monday, May 03, 2010

For the first time in Israel's history, the Education Ministry has suspended the school principal of an "Independent Educational" school of the Chareidi Educational system in Israel.

Israel Radio reported that a Beis Yaakov principal in Beit Shemesh threatened to isolate a 6 year old Sephardi student. The principal told the girl's parents that if they insisted on keeping her in the school, their daughter will be forced to suffer social isolation and will become a 'museum exhibit.'"

Israel's Ministry of Education suspended the principal for a year and said they have adopted a zero tolerance policy towards Ashkenazi-Sephardi discrimination.source: Voice of Israel radio, Kikar Shabbat.

13 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Jameel . since both Ashkenazi and Sephardi are the same race, don't you think that there are better terms than racism. How about bigotry, discrtmination, hostility, prejudice etc? Racism has become such a loaded, McCarthyite term that is used to stifle discussion. Once you define racism down you than find Israel being accused of it for all kinds of non-racial reasons

Jameel, it's not your fault: the original article uses the term גזעות - racism; so you merely posted what they wrote.Of course, that doesn't make it right (although the term 'racism' is used very broadly these days). The more correct term probably is 'discrimination'.

The Ministry of Education made the right move in suspending that principal.

And to think I tried to get my daughter into an atzmai school (Horev) when we lived in Israel (where they taught that dinosaur bones were planted where they've been found by archeologists by G-d). I've learned better...

What makes Ashkenazim and Sefardim the same race? They are descended from different populations which split about 1000 years ago. Yes, they have common ancestry, but all humans have common ancestry. So the term "racism" is totally appropriate. Especially when the people who say "it's not racism" generally have the ulterior motive of saying that it's not really wrong at all. (Like the Arabs who say they can't be anti-Semites because Arabs are Semites too)

shlomo, do you know what the definition of race is? By all criteria Ashkenazim and Sefardim are of the same race. Both are members of the caucasoid race ( the semitic branch if you want to nitpick). Some people apply racism to all conflicts -just like marxists applied classism to all conflicts, however this is rather jejune. The Franco-Prussian war or the cambridge -Oxford rivalry were not racial. I prefer the Yankees to the Red Sox. I guess that makes me racist.